Answer I was going to award the bounty to disappeared

Question

Addressing a formal letter to multiple people with unknown names

I set a bounty on that question. User @JOSH wrote an answer, which I was going to award the bounty to. There were two parts to his answer. The second part of his answer, I felt, addressed my question satisfactorily.

I received an automatic reminder today, went to the question, planning to award the bounty to the answer, since the deadline is coming up tomorrow, but the answer had disappeared.

If @JOSH doesn't want his answer associated with his user ID for some reason, okay, I'd like to repost the basic idea. But I need to read his answer again to do that.

The other answers are not worthy of the bounty, in my opinion.

What can I do?

Can the moderators help?

Edit:

Now it turns out I won't be able to award the bounty to the answer I wrote, even though I'm not the OP. Sigh. Hopefully JOSH will reinstate his answer.

Answer 1

You need 10K or more rep to see deleted content. You currently have ~9K on EL&U.

The answer you liked read as follows:

I often see the following expression in letters that have no specific recipient:

To whom it may concern:

To the appropriate recipient for this message, as in I didn't know who was responsible for these complaints so I just addressed it “to whom it may concern.” This phrase is a formula used in letters, testimonials, and the like when one does not know the name of the proper person to address. [Second half of 1800s ]

(Dictionary.com)

But if you want to be more specific and address the members of a Board

• Dear Board Members

is an appropriate form you can use.

(www.businesswritingblog.com)

Please note that Josh's MO is to delete content which isn't enthusiastically received, improve it, and then undelete the new and improved post, hopefully addressing all the concerns which have been raised.

I'd suggest giving him a day or two to follow that procedure here, before posting an overlapping answer (plus, I don't think you can award a bounty on your own answer).

Answer 2

Adding to @DanBron's great answer, you need to note that the system gives you approximately 24 hours (grace period) additionally to award an answer. That means it is actually not seven days, but eight days to award an answer if there is an answer.

The other answers are not worthy of the bounty, in my opinion.

What can I do?

If you don't find any answer helpful, you don't need to do anything. The system will automatically award the bounty as indicated in the linked Meta SE question, How does the bounty system work?

If the bounty starter accepted an answer during the bounty period, that answer is awarded the bounty (provided that the answer was also posted during the bounty period). Answers created or accepted before the bounty period are not eligible to be awarded the bounty automatically.

Otherwise, the bounty is awarded to the highest-scored answer out of those which...

• ...were posted after the bounty was started
• ...have a score of at least +2
• ...were not written by the bounty starter

If two or more eligible answers have the same score (if their scores are tied), the oldest answer is awarded the bounty.

If none of these conditions apply, the bounty is not awarded to any answer, and is not refunded to the bounty starter.

Automatically-awarded bounties are half of the amount originally offered, unless the answer is accepted - accepted answers always receive the full bounty.